


A Little Soul Carrying Around A Corpse

by expolsion



Series: hurting. [3]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Angst, Mentions of alcoholism, This is...really sad, a prequel to the other works in this series, dealing with death, im sorry, it will make sense without them but you should read them anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 18:30:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15030713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/expolsion/pseuds/expolsion
Summary: Rich dealing with the death of his mother.





	A Little Soul Carrying Around A Corpse

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty sad. And really short. I'm in a mood today, sorry. Hope you enjoy anyway. Unbeta'd, so let me know about any mistakes.

It was 3 months after Her. Rich was 9, but that didn’t mean as much to him anymore. His life had been divided in two, the Before, and the After. That’s how he kept track of time now. 

 

He and his dad were…. adapting. His dad had only gotten worse during the After. Not like things were great when She was still around, but they were better. Before, the bills were paid, there was food in the fridge, a stable income, and Rich had a ride to school.

 

Not anymore. He carefully opened the door to his father’s room, having perfected the art of opening the door with minimal noise long ago. He was greeted with the usual sight: assorted beer bottles and cans everywhere, and his father passed out spread-eagle on the bed, still in his clothes from yesterday.

 

Rich had a sinking feeling that this was going to become the new normal. Sighing, he closed the door and bustled around the house, gathering his books and throwing whatever he could find in a bag for lunch. Not that there was much. He grabbed the map he'd been using to get to school for the past few weeks from its place on the fridge. It had a route outline in sharpie. Her voice echoed in his ears. "Left, right, straight for 3 blocks, then another left." He was grateful she had taught him Before. Waking up his father now would be worse than however far he had to walk.

 

He coughed to clear his head. He set his bag down by the front door and went to complete the last item of his routine—minimal clean up. Every night, his father got like this, and every morning, Rich snuck into his room and cleared away the majority of the bottles. He had to, things would just be worse if his father got hurt.

 

He stood in the doorway for a second, running through his mental checklist to assess the situation. There wasn’t any puke this time, and no food or anything that would rot smearing into the carpet. He didn’t immediately spot any wet patches of hopefully-beer-but-possibly-piss, but he knew there were probably at least 3. So he puttered around the room quietly, picking up a few beer bottles at a time and bringing them down to the garage and putting them in the recycling bin, until he had the last one in his hand. Then he noticed something was off—the closet door was open, and there was something sparkling on the ground.

  
  


A step closer told him it was a shattered picture frame. He sighed. He really didn't need to deal with broken glass right now, but he couldn't just leave it there. Resigning himself to his fate of being late for school (again), he grabbed the small trash bin to the right of the dresser and knelt down to pick up some of the larger pieces.

 

He caught sight of the picture, and stopped. 3 people featured prominently, two of which he recognized immediately. It was his parents. They were probably in college at this point, and they looked happy. Thinking about it, Rich couldn’t remember the last time he had seen his mother smile. She always looked the same: tall and thin, so pale you could see her veins, and thin straw blonde hair that hung in a curtain around her face, which was long and drawn. Her small lips were always pursed in a frown, and her gray eyes were lifeless and dull. She carried herself with an air of general unhappiness.

 

She looked nothing like that in this picture.

 

She was still pale, but she didn’t look unhealthy. She wasn’t thin to the point of being underweight, and her hair was pulled away from her face in an up-knot. Her gray eyes sparkled with life and happiness, made more noticeable by the deep scarlet that adorned her lips. She was smiling widely at the camera, caught mid-laugh by whatever his father—her date—had just said. She had on a loose white shirt, with black skinny jeans that were secured with boots that reached up to her knee. Her signature leather jacket was barely visible, discarded on the bar behind her. 

 

Rich had never seen her wear the jacket, but he found it in a closet a few years ago. When his mother realized his discovery, she ripped it out of his hand and shoved it back into the closet, demanding he never went in there again. He never understood why, but he agreed. It occurred to him now that it doesn’t matter anymore, and he could have the jacket if he wanted it. For some reason, that realization hurt.

 

He was broken out of his reverie by the clock in the living room, loudly clanging out 8 chimes. Abandoning the pieces of glass, he grabbed the photo and ran out the door, grabbing his bag on the way. He shoved the picture in his jacket pocket, to be forgotten about until later.

**Author's Note:**

> well, I told you there'd be a squip reveal. Did ya catch it? anyway, hmu @genderfluid-jaredkleinmann on tumblr.


End file.
